We All Make Choices

Two people. 12 feet apart. Both talking on their phones. One of them talking about how drunk they got Saturday night, the other talking about setting a meeting with a business partner.

Sometimes I find myself analyzing the stupidest little every day things but the more I think on them, the more I realize it’s really not that stupid after all.

Let me give you an example.

I’m at a Starbucks waiting on a client to show up, we’ve never met in person before so I’m scoping out every person that walks in.

Lady walks in, fairly sloppy talking on her cell phone and proceeds to place her coffee order while still gossiping on her phone giving way less than half her attention to the woman taking her order. Chatty Cathy gets her iced latte with extra whip cream and caramel, gets into her beat to crap car and speeds off, all the while still on the phone.

At the same time I watch this going down, across the room from me is another woman, roughly the same age, dressed neatly, notepad and pencil arranged on the table quietly speaking on the phone about coordinating a meeting with a business partner to plan their next round of funding.

What fascinates me the most about this is that these two women, both about the same age, both consuming coffee, both on their phones both having wildly different life experiences.

Now, I’m really not sure all that much about these people’s personal lives and it’s not really possible to judge them fully based on the 5 minutes I spent observing them but I think it’s hard not to see the lessons here.

We go through life not always paying enough attention to the decisions we make, the impressions we leave, the people we impact. Some people are just going to dredge through life treating people poorly and wondering why they never get ahead and other are proactive and constantly win.

It’s not always easy to keep your ducks in a row, and it’s not always easy to keep a positive attitude but it’s important that we constantly make efforts to make that happen. I’m fully convinced that what we put into life, is what we’re going to get out of it.

Let me give you another example that happened today.

I’m working with a couple partners on the launch of a new project. It’s been in the planning stages for a couple of months but has been kept pretty low key while the details get worked out. The crew around the office is aware of it though, although since it’s been a while it has fallen off most people’s radars, except one.

This one guy follows up, asks questions, pumps the idea up and is constantly asking ‘how can I help’ or noting ‘I’m really excited to help grow the company’. As you might imagine, as our launch gets closer, this eager young fellow is way more inclined to get involved and stay involved and set himself up for a lot of future success.

At the same time, others in the office choose to take the stance of anger and resentment for not being more involved as the vision becomes more real.

Let me ask you – who would you rather be around and who would you think is more likely to be more successful, the person who pumps others up and wants to contribute or the one who sits back and gets mad it’s not all about them?

Both people have the same opportunity to be involved, both people have the same access to resources, one chooses to be positive and one to be negative.

The choices we make every day dictate our lives and although they may seem trivial in the moment, minute by minute they add up to create our reality.

So please, do me this favor and take a few minutes right now to think about what energy you’re putting out into the world, and what’s coming back to you. Often if not every time you’re going to see that the quality of life you lead is in direct correlation to the quality of self you put out there in the world.